My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world.
Jack LaytonRead
And finally, to all Canadians: Canada is a great country, one of the hopes of the world. We can be a better one – a country of greater equality, justice, and opportunity. We can build a prosperous economy and a society that shares its benefits more fairly. We can look after our seniors. We can offer better futures for our children. We can do our part to save the world's environment. We can restore our good name in the world.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the potential for Canada to improve in areas such as equality, justice, and environmental stewardship.
Jack Layton's quote underscores the responsibility and capabilities of Canada as a nation to evolve into a more equitable and just society. It highlights the importance of addressing systemic issues like economic disparity and environmental concerns while also focusing on the well-being of future generations, ultimately suggesting that collective effort can lead to a brighter future for both the country and the world at large.
In practice
This quote could be used in a speech about national unity and progress at a Canadian citizenship ceremony.
My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world.
To other Canadians who are on journeys to defeat cancer and to live their lives, I say this: please don't be discouraged that my own journey hasn't gone as well as I had hoped. You must not lose your own hope.
I represent a party which does not yet exist: the party Revolution-Civilization. This party will make the twentieth century. There will issue from it first the United States of Europe, then the United States of the World.
The future isn't so much about absorbing or tolerating change, it's about making change.
I'm just one generation between someone who cheered when Germans were burning and someone who doesn't even know that there is a border. That's a miracle - really is a miracle - and it gets me really emotional.
It is the most painful thing to see how young children become collateral damage of wars, but when peace treaties are signed landmines do not respect any of these accords. And as long as these silent killers linger after wars, children will never know peace
The question, I've come to think, is not what inspires one to change, but what inspires one to remain changed.
I did say, at Chicago, in my speech there, that I do wish to see the spread of slavery arrested and to see it placed where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction.
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